New schools to emerge despite enrollment rates

The academic institutions have filed applications with the ministry for their establishment in the next two years, according to Minister of Education Cheng Jei cheng.

Cheng said people enjoy the legal right to start up educational institutions, but the ministry will try to explain to the institutes about the hard truths of Taiwan’s higher education sector, which has faced a dearth of students,with more spaces available than applicants, mostly because of a low birth rate. Colleges and universities here have accepted students scoring nearly zero in entrance exams due to fierce competition for students. This summer, for instance, students with a score of zero still stood a chance of getting into a university.

Among the new colleges to be opened is a new medical school, the Mackay College of Medicine, which has been proposed by the Taiwan Presbyterian Church.

The college is expected to be formally established next year in preparation for its first enrollment of students in September 2009, if everything goes smoothly, said Yang Yu-hui, deputy director of the MOE’s Department of Higher Education.

According to tallies released by the education ministry, Taiwan’s universities and colleges expected to solicit a total of just over 350,000 new students in the 2007 school year, and only around 290,000 or 83.49 percent of them registered to study, the lowest percentage of its kind in four years.

Over the past seven years, a total of 30 universities have been established in Taiwan or transformed into what they are, but over 30 percent of these universities have seen their new student enrollment rate fall below 70 percent, according to recent media reports.

Subscribe to The China Post and save 25%. Click here

PrintEmail

Write a Comment

Terms

Enter your comments - 3000 characters max

Type in image code

Submit

 Receive China Post promos
 Respond to this email